


How Ray Got His Turtle

by Nny



Category: due South
Genre: Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-05
Updated: 2012-04-05
Packaged: 2017-11-03 02:18:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/375998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nny/pseuds/Nny
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>He couldn’t help thinking that was what the universe had in store for him, though, some wildly bizarre death to overshadow everything that he ever did until he’s just Ray Kowalski: Dead of Melon. </i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	How Ray Got His Turtle

Mostly Ray got shot at. 

See for anyone else that’d be kind of the point; there were cops who staked their reputation on not getting shot at, on getting things resolved without guns getting involved. Somehow Ray’d never been intended for that kind of career; something about the way he did his hair attracted the crazies. Getting shot at he could handle, was the thing. It was like fate, or karma, or whatever it was that was going to pay him back for all the asshole dipshits he’d had to draw his gun on over the years. 

It was the embarrassing ones he took offense at, mostly. Like that one time some cheap-ass dirtball tried to brain him with a cantaloupe. He couldn’t help thinking that was what the universe had in store for him, though, some wildly bizarre death to overshadow everything that he ever did until he’s just Ray Kowalski: Dead of Melon. 

He was pretty sure his mom wouldn’t let them put that on the gravestone, at least. It’d say something nice like ‘Ray Kowalski, beloved son and devoted officer of the law (until the cantaloupe killed him)’. The universe’s ultimate PS on the freakshow that was his life. 

But he’d be damned if he went out by fucking _turtle_.

***

So the day started out pretty regular. He woke himself up when he crashed to the wooden floor of his shitty apartment, reaching too far for someone who wasn’t there. It was easier when he slept on the couch; he could pretend – for the moment or two before he actually woke up – that it was just another fight and Stella was only a wall away.

Start the day off _right_. 

Instead it was just him, rolling out of his new double bed that had one side (her side) completely unused, his cursing providing counterpoint to the phone trill that had woken him up in the first place. 

It was Goldstein on the phone, just like it was always fucking Goldstein on the phone. His low voice was rumbling in Ray’s ear for a full minute before he tuned in, managed to get his brain up to speed. 

“Hey, wait, woah, back up there, Chief. What’re we talking about?”

Goldstein swore, slow and weirdly melodic; nine times out of ten when Ray ended up working with him, he’d let the guy do all the talking. 

“I forgot you were on nights, Kowalski, I wouldn’t have -”

“I’m up, I’m up,” Ray interrupted, fighting his way out of the sheet that was tangled around the lower half of his body. 

“- if I didn’t know you knew the guy -”

“I’m _up_.”

“ – like a brother to you, you said, so – “

Ray dug the heel of his hand into his eyesocket, like he could reach straight through and massage his brain, take on the ice pick that was trying to burrow its way out. 

“Charlie?”

“Charlie,” Goldstein confirmed, then waited patiently until Ray’d run out of swear words and started to repeat himself. 

See, the age difference meant that maybe brother wasn’t so appropriate, but there was this idea of experience or knowledge or lack of complete stupidity that came with saying a guy was like an uncle to you, a father. Most times he ended up dealing with Charlie, _Ray_ was the one feeling like a father; gave him some idea of why Stella’d never wanted kids. Most of the guys down the station didn’t get why he bothered with him – Ray always told them you don’t need brains to use your ears. He just wished maybe, sometimes, Charlie’s ears weren’t hooked up so close to his mouth. 

So it wouldn’t be the first time he’d had to wade in to get his snitch out of the trouble he’d gotten himself into. Definitely the first time, though, he’d heard of – 

“…seriously?”

Goldstein rumbled an assent and Ray pinched the bridge of his nose. Today was gonna be an eight advil day, no question. 

“Who the hell gets taken hostage in a pet shop?”

***

Carla's Pet Emporium wasn't just a pet shop, Goldstein'd told him. It was advertised as a pet buying _experience_ , with everything your pet could need and a thousand more things besides. The top floor was some kind of animal salon (Ray's brain kept wanting to combine the words into one of those cutesy hybrid names but couldn't quite get it, it was distracting) and apparently there was a section at the back where you could buy matching shirts for you and your freaking chihuahua.

Mostly what it was now, though, was a _mess_. Tattered bags of kibble spilled their guts all over the floor, mixed in among the cat toys and upended hamster cages. An aquarium had a splintered crack all down one side and was leaking over the cat litter beneath, fish flopping increasingly desperately inside, and perched on top of it was a brightly coloured bird that tilted its head to one side and eyed Ray suspiciously. 

It wasn't your usual hostage situation, this. No SWAT team outside, no demands, no negotiator - hell, no one would even have noticed anything was happening if they hadn't phoned the cops themselves. And it wouldn't have got passed up the line to Ray if Goldstein hadn't been in the area, hadn't been first on the scene. 

No one inside guarding the door; hell, no one inside at all from what Ray could see. Common sense dictated he call for backup, check out alternative entrances, call the shop and see if he could get some idea of the list of demands; then again, common sense and Ray'd never really got on. He shoved his way through the glass doors, hearing Goldstein sigh and pick up his radio before they even closed behind him. 

"Yo, Charlie!"

"Hey, Ray."

The quavering voice came from somewhere above him. Ray walked a little further into the store and craned his neck around. The second floor gave out maybe halfway towards the front of the store, a balcony holding a cutesy store front for the unimaginatively named 'Pet Salon' (Animalon? Salonimal?); a catwalk ran around the rest of the floor and looked like it was mostly used for storage. And there, sat in among the dust covered cardboard boxes and being threatened with what looked like a pair of nail clippers was a leash-bound Charlie. He managed to get one hand free enough to give Ray a little wave. 

"One of these days," Ray told him, "I'm just gonna kill you myself." 

"I know it," Charlie said, nodding. 

"Shut up!" 

Wannabe tough guy number one, the one with the clippers, waved them in Charlie's face and Charlie shrank back, looking a little scared, which frankly Ray didn't get at all. For that matter, what was with the clippers in the first place? They couldn't get the cash together to spring for a knife? Criminals these days just weren't putting in the effort. Ray looked across to where WTG#2, the one with the beard you could lose a goat in, was fumbling with something in a barely balanced glass tank. 

And that'd be where being in a pet shop could have its advantages for the unprepared lowlife. Ray was pretty sure they wouldn't be selling anything that could poison you, but someone at Stella's college had had a boa for a pet, and they could squeeze you to death, right? Or spiders, spiders could be a problem if - 

"Stay back," WTG#2 yelled, holding his prize up triumphantly, "or the turtle gets it!"

... this was just getting embarrassing.

***

Could it really be called a Mexican stand off, Ray wondered, if only one side had a gun? He hadn't got his gun out yet but it was getting more tempting by the second, listening to the idiots with the inadequate weapons bickering over exactly what it was they wanted. WTG#2 was holding out for the contents of the register, a pair of budgerigars and a car out of there; WTG#1, who seemed to have a little more going on upstairs than his partner, apparently wanted some kind of revenge on Charlie. The man himself was looking steadily more nervous as the clippers were edged closer to his throat.

"Okay, I've had about enough of this freak show," Ray yelled. 

Three heads whipped around to stare at him - four, if you included the turtle, being suspended over the side of the catwalk by WTG#2 as some messed up kind of dead man's switch - and away from the window behind them, being stealthily prised up by Goldstein. Focusing on Tough Guy #2, Ray grinned the kind of shit-eating grin he'd used to intimidate people a hell of a lot tougher. 

"I know what you're thinking," he said, pulling his gun from its holster and training it right between the guy's eyes (possibly. He wasn't wearing his glasses). "Does his love of animals outweigh his urge to put a bullet through my head? Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement I kind of lost track myself. But being as this has been the kind of day where a little turtle murder couldn't make things any worse you've got to ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky?" 

The first not-particularly-tough guy nearly jumped out of his skin as the cold barrel of Goldstein's gun pressed against the back of his neck. 

"Well, do ya, punk?"

Ray tried not to resent how much better it sounded, coming out of his partner's mouth. 

As Goldstein cuffed the farthammers above Ray tried to roll the tension out of his shoulders, holstering his gun as he headed for the door. 

"I hate my life," he muttered under his breath. Which was, 'cos that's just how the universe treated one Stanley Raymond Kowalski, when the turtle hit him.

***

"So what're you gonna call it?" Goldstein rumbled across the bullpen. Ray groaned - apparently he'd been designated turtle keeper, once it was done being material evidence - and disappeared back under the ice pack.

"Killer," he said after a second, the sound of his voice a little muffled what with how his ears were still ringing. The laughter, though, he could hear loud and clear.

So when the undercover assignment crossed his desk, barely a week later - some cop down in the 2-7, barely even an acting job - he figured 'what the hell' and signed away his name. 

It's not like his life could get any weirder, right?


End file.
